Lowlights from my first hour playing cav in cRPG:
-Missed a couch against an AFK peasant in spawn. Twice.
-Couched two teammates' horses by accident
-Snuck up on an archer from behind, missed 3 consecutive 1h sword swings while he was zoomed and unaware of me. He finally caught on and hacked my horse to death while I cried.
-Dehorsed or killed by every single opposing cavalry I jousted with
-Reared by almost every type of inanimate object on the map (trees, rocks, buildings, fences, etc).
Highlights:
-Opposing horse archer wasted two entire rounds shooting dozens of arrows at me, without ever killing me or my horse
-Looked sexy with heraldic armor+helm+shield+lance+horse (thanks Draeth!)
-Horse never had to be repaired in a full hour of x1 (good thing too, cus this was a STF with 3k gold to his name)
So yeah, I suck at cav, but I think of it as a slightly more interactive spectator mode for Battle. So I'll probably still do it for my alt's next gen.
I managed only half a gen of cav (levels 1-30) before the cav patch where I decided to use my reclaimed cav points as IF and just finish the gen off (30-31) as a shielder. To me, all the excitement happens on foot. As you said, cav is basically just a cool interactive spectator mode... kinda how I'd imagine flying a fighter jet through a WW2 battle would feel. You have the option to land some free kills with your machine gun... but good luck hitting anything. As with flying, you only have a few counters... other aircraft (cav), anti-air guns (long 2d or 1d polearms... as a lancer cav even the shorter 2d poles aren't much threat to be honest), and of course the ground/scenery. The only time anti cav weapons were much of a problem for me was when I knew I was taking a risk, and like my melee playstyle, I just charged right in. They are pretty easy to avoid in my opinion. But as with all cav, the amount of kills you get, the amount of fun you have, and the amount of time you are alive on the battlefield are all dependent on one thing: how big your balls are. You can certainly play out the whole round in a glorified spectator mode as most HA do. On horseback, not much can harm you, and if you are actively on the lookout for, and take precautions to avoid, said things you will be fine. Hence on horseback I either died really soon, or survived for the entire round not accomplishing much. I knew that when I started to feel relieved I was getting dehorsed that it was time to rethink this money-sink of a build I had. My best KDRs always ended up being the rounds where I got dehorsed early and played the rest of the round out on foot. That cav patch was a blessing for my alt.
Anyways, my 1h cav tips:
- Swing much later than when you think you should. I would always seemingly swing through my target with every pass, but it was apparently because I was completing my swing before contact. Hold your swing until you are about to hit your target, then release. It doesn't quite line up with what you see, but that's how yah gotta do it.
- As with on foot, left swing best swing.
- When you get a little better fighting other cav, use the 1h stab a little. It is goofy on horseback, but it does wonders since high speed bonus + high pierce damage + least expected attack direction.
And my (couching) lancer cav tips:
- Don't miss.
- Seriously though, just hit X to couch and line it up.
- You have plenty of time to line it up before you automatically retract.
- It's actually pretty easy.
- And skill-less.
- Just keep in mind the lance tip is farther away than it looks, and you will be golden.
Come to think of it, I probably should have just gone lancer cav from the start. I only used the colored lance in the duel server against a seasoned cav player and I went at least 1 to 1 in our jousting matches. I once picked up a MW great lance in NA1 and went on a 5 or 6 kill streak in one life, my record for cav. This was all done with 0 wpf in polearms, in case that actually matters for couching. Anyways, have fun with your cav gen, and I look forward to seeing you (read: dehorsing and killing you) on the battlefield.
